Making of a murderer

Have you ever wondered what it would feel like to take a human life? I dreamt of it last night.

In my dream, I was riding him hard until at the very last minute,

I ran a knife right through his throat and watched calmly,

As a red blood spurted on my face and my hands

And he gasped and spluttered for breath

Holding on to his throat

Willing the air to stay in his lungs

Knowing that his struggle was going to end in a few seconds

And there was nothing he could do about it.

Yes, it is clichéd but it was the most satisfying dream I had in a long time! The satisfaction was palpable.

The scene changed

This time I stood before him,

With a hand gun that seemed like it was made for me.

Cold metal sleekly fit into the palm of my hand.

I raised my gun and gripped it tightly with both hands,

I could smell his fear

And his feeble cries for mercy

Sounded like music to my ears.

I squeeze the trigger

BAM!

Down he goes,

Blood on the walls.

I sniff the smoke hissing out of the gun, 

Pungent gunpowder

My heart racing and my ears ringing

My blood boiling

My heart swells with joy and excitement.

I can feel the adrenaline coursing through my veins

As I bend over him

And see the light leave his eyes.

I have never been so angry ever in my life. I was unaware that I am capable of murder. But I think I am and I think I will be very good at it. 

Cornell University, Ithaca, NY- A retrospective

There is something delicious about the cold morning air in upstate New York. You probably won't really notice it after living there for a few days, and positively hate it when it turns from "cold" to "can potentially murder you". Still visiting Ithaca this weekend was a like the afterglow of eating a good meal: you savour every moment and every flavor, you taste the vestiges of the meal in your mouth and revel in it, you feel satisfied and yet you miss it but you also know that it can't last forever. I suppose investing a part of yourself in any place by leaving behind a mixed bag of memories, some good and some terrible, would do that you.

For me it used to be Manipal: even after my trip there in 2014 where I realized that it was not as how I remembered it because most of the people that made it special were gone (except a few dear friends), I still think about it fondly from time to time, pictures and places and faces playing out in my head as if cloaked by an Instagram filter inspired by Joy from Inside Out, bathed by a warm yellow glow, all fuzzy around the edges. Needless to say that Cornell and I share a much more antagonistic relationship. But maybe that was because I barely had the time to find a foothold. Just as I was finally accepting the reality of being surrounded by remarkable people who are way more brilliant than I, and being comfortable with that and exploring more of the town and the campus detached from my insecurities, it was time to leave. Of course, everyone I knew went through the same thing. Perhaps I am more susceptible to emotional instability than the rest. There was no time to make peace or complete the journey from vitriolic hatred and fear to joyful wonder and acceptance. Even now I am happier about my childhood dream of living in New York City coming true, than my childhood dream of attending an Ivy League University coming true.

But after this weekend, I can make peace with the fact that even though I under performed and under achieved while I was there, even though I should have done thrice as much and expected half as much happiness, I am a tiny part of Cornell's 150 year old part history and Cornell will be a large part of me. I am grateful for the one year that has given me the identity I crave and the strength to keep holding on and to dig my claws into the bare-rock face of the gorges even as the cold and the wind and the disillusionment threatened to knock me over. Even though I am ashamed about not living up the Cornell name I am happy that at least I got the chance to belong.

Night fall in Ithaca is completely distinct from New York. Here, the metros rumble past my apartment all day, unflinchingly, even at 3 AM carrying the last batch of drunk night owls back to their tiny apartments. Even a introspective solo smoke session is interrupted by the chug-chug of the trains crashing along every few minutes of so. But in Ithaca, at 1 AM, everything is quiet. It is just you, your cigarette and your thoughts, accompanied by the dim humming of silence and the lights glowing and flickering in the valley below. As the snowflakes drift slowly from the ink-black sky, like little glass panes, catching the light, you can be at peace with yourself and with the world. So until next time, Cornell and Ithaca, be that little bubble of stillness in this mad world, and go easy on the kids this winter.

500 miles

You realize that you have been living in a haze.
Actually,
You already knew that.
You lose track of time,
Of how long you have been clutching at straws,
How many times you have wandered down the same road,
How many times you have felt that strange deja vu,
Of seeing the mile marker:
500 miles to freedom

Maybe it has been three years,
Or maybe seven!
The fog makes everything seem flat.
Grey oceans of thick,wet fog,
Rolling in ominously.
You walk in circles
And you see the mile marker
Again and again:
500 miles to paradise

You can't remember the last time you enjoyed doing something!
Solving a problem,
Creating art,
Working till your bones creaked,
Or your brain hurt.
All you can remember is grey.
A tuning fork humming steadily in the background,
An eternal note,
Echoing softly with clarity
In the fog,
As you stumble by the mile marker:
500 miles to life

You know you have walked thousands of miles.
Surely, this can't be right?
Despite the tired bones and the numb legs
You know you kept walking.
You never stopped.
Despite the nasty, cold, clammy mist against your cheek
Like dead fish,
You kept going.
Surely, "there" isn't that far?
But somehow you know,
As you trudge along, summoning all your energy,
As the mile marker comes up by the edge of the road,
Sitting innocently,
Barely visible through the fog,
You know it's going to say:
500 miles to home.

A case study of time and change

Time flies.
Time drips.
Time inches like a snail,
Leaving a sodden, slimy, trail in its wake.
Time flits,
Time lingers languidly,
Time flutters like a dancing snowflake,
There and then forever lost!

Four years, five years, six years.

We hope to change,
Grow, stronger and wiser like an oak tree.
I hold on to the broken pieces,
To the emotions of memories forgotten.

I have forgotten, but I cannot forgive.

Time grinds by,
Like a great wheel,
Crushing innocence and naïve dreams
I embrace the zest of the unknown,
And yet hang on to the murky past.
Perhaps, that will be the best it will ever be!

Time slips by,
Like a rich, satin cloth,
So smooth that we don’t notice it!
People, friends all seem to float along with it.
Time taking them to new journeys
Or destinations.
I hold fast to the creases on this sheet,
Desperately stalling the inevitable,
Holding on to any traces of having been human.
To have loved,
To have lost.

I wish I could say I have changed, but that’s a lie.

Time flows like a great river,
Meandering then furiously crashing,
A crescendo of angry froth.
Holding on to a piece of driftwood,
I try to swim against the current.
To validate my unfounded rage,
While the answer, I know, is to let go.

I will never let go.

Purge

In the beginning, there were bells and violins; the smouldering coals of passion and lust, increasingly frequently occluded by the the clouds of potential romance. In the end, there was the delicious saltiness of purging tears. Pain made her clean again.

Emotional Haiku

Less dead,
I try to feel
Inside.

Conversation

I can not
Express
How important it is
To speak
And
To listen.

Fin

I think what you did was right.
Ripped off the band-aid,
Demolished my castle in the air,
With a blunt wrecking ball.

The pain feels surreal this time,
Not sharp,
Not burning,
No tears in my eyes,
Although they threaten to encroach upon my plastered smile.
Just a numbness.

My arms feel weak.
My legs, heavy.
My brain, buzzing with static.
And my soul,
Weighed down.

Sure, I will bounce back!
This is after all, my story,
My feelings, my words.
My world, where I am allowed to be selfish,
Callous,
Self-centered,
Self-absorbed,
And filled with deep self-loathing.

Thank you though,
For reminding me what it feels like,
To want someone,
To want more than their body,
To want their being,
To want their soul,
To want their laughter,
And their soft touch

Thank you for reminding me,
That I still have a beating heart,
Beneath all those layers
Of put-on cynicism,
Scar tissue of years gone by,
The shell of fear
And the vehement opposition to change.

Thank you for your honesty,
Your sweet innocence,
And the time we had.
And despite the bitterness of my tired soul,
I wish you nothing but happiness.

Farewell, my love!

Ode to the uncertainty of love

I think I am falling in love with you,

And I guess that’s okay.

Slowly and steadily!

I tell myself, "Be cool;

Be strong, be brave and be detached!"

And then I can taste your lips on mine;

The way you eagerly explore my mouth,

The way you bite my lower lip,

The exhilaration in the pain;

And I feel myself fall,

Slowly, watching the blue sky open up over me,

Bathed in the rays of the bursting dawn,

As I fall through pearly white, cottony clouds

And float towards the world.

I think I really like you,

I don't want to, but I guess that’s okay.

I wait for you to text me,

And I worry when you don’t,

Fretting and huffing and puffing,

Wowing to hate you,

And to forget you,

To erase your very existence,

From the landscape of my mind.

And then you say hi,

And I can see your smile,

Warm and guileless,

Innocent like a day old child,

And the dimples that crease your cheeks,

And the way your eyes light up,

And I have already forgiven you

I think I want you,

It's hard to admit but it's okay.

I want to be hard as nails,

Defensive, like I have taught myself to be,

Immune to emotions and pain,

Apathetic and indifferent.

Cold when couples come together at the lips,

And join themselves at their souls.

Cold, as cold as New York on a January morning.

And then I remember the touch of your fingers,

The way they linger,

On the naked skin of my back,

Your lips on my neck,

Setting me on fire,

Your kindness and your urgency,

Your patience and your passion,

The way you said my name,

The way you held my hand,

The way you chained me to your bed, by your side

The weight of your body on mine,

And the comfort of your arms around me,

And the walls of ice I built,

Melt away.

I think I want us to be together,

It’s a long shot, but wishing it, is okay!

I know we live on two ends of this island,

Seems like two ends of the world on gray days and textless hours.

It will be hard,

It might be excruciating,

What with me and my baggage

And you and your past.

But mostly me and my baggage.

But when I think of holding hands,

Walking through the fall leaves in Central Park,

Arms entwined,

Kissing on the terrace of the MET,

Walking through the West village,

Sharing a hot chocolate at Serendipity

Or in my apartment,

Curling up in your soft blanket,

Watching Netflix on your laptop, naked,

It seems worth it.

I don’t know if we are meant to be,

If this is really a thing,

Or just a flash in the pan,

A one night stand,

A blip on my stream of random "romantic" rendezvous!

I don't know if we are going to grow old together,

Live in a ramshackle apartment together,

Or even go out on a date together,

But then I think of you,

And not knowing seems okay.

Taking a chance seems okay.

Deciding to trust seems okay.

Who knows?

Maybe we will be okay!

Night by the ocean

I like where we are,
Under the jasmine tree,
With the smell of the ocean,
Mingling with the sweet scent of the white blossoms.

I am nestled in your arms,
Your warm breath on my neck,
Your fingers playing,
With my hair and the thin cords of my white dress.

Gentle are your kisses
And your words are music.
Lost in the scent of jasmine
And the ocean and my night black hair, we linger,

In the silver moonlight,
Until the first rays of the sun.

The unbearable lightness of normalcy

Lana del Rey has released a new song. I am delighted! It is vintage Lana, with her soft crooning, infused with the sultry richness of her voice that just seems to ooze honey and sex but also with strong tones of crushing sorrow and loneliness. She is my favorite alter ego.

She also reminds me strongly of what I am not.

Living in Ithaca, every waking day can be rich literary fodder. From the merciless nights in February, when the world seems deceptively warm as streetlights bounce of the drifts of white snow, despite being as cold as death, to the summer, stifling humidity followed by rain, grey skies, winds whistling through the leaves, chilling to the bone. It is quiet. Silence is often broken only by the rustling of leaves or the gushing of waterfalls that cut through the gorges. Like my trip to Istanbul, I was sure that the words would well up in my mind, in my eyes, and fall off my tongue. Silvertongue, they would call me. Just like Istanbul, I was sorely disappointed. Where I was sure that this was going to be a period of literary fecundity, I was left staring, a year later, at a torrent of clear, cool water that poured from the skies, shivering in the middle of July, waiting for the words to come, waiting for my moments of genius; for that life-affirming spark that would rage into a passionate fire, that would make me capable of painting pictures with words for the rest of my life.

Sometimes, I wonder if the desire to become a writer stemmed from a deeper insecurity within me, fueled by low self esteem. In my younger days, I would write verses, short and long, on very similar themes- loss, loneliness, death, decay, the utter pointlessness of existence! It was indeed quite enjoyable to entertain the notion that these verses would someday amount to something, even a Pulitzer Prize. I wonder if that was a salve for the pain that arose from the anger of not being a genius or an innovator. Perhaps, it was something to aspire for, when I had no clear direction of where I was going or what I wanted from life. It is easier to get through the mundanity of each day, when one believes that there is an ultimate goal, an ultimate destination to a very repetitive journey. But what if life is, like science predicts and the nihilists assert, inherently pointless? A cosmic accident, an insignificant existence in a sea of galaxies, suns, dying stars, in an ever-expanding random universe!

Sometimes I feel that my literary shortcomings stem from how normal my life is. Surely, in order to write something powerful, the author must have a series of experiences that range from tense excitement to inconsolable grief. All award winning novels are products of profound life experiences- wars, death, interment, personal tragedies. I wonder if my disability to produce good literature stems from the normalcy and relative comfort of my life. Simply put, I have nothing to write about.

The insidiousness of normalcy recently manifested in my life, as a recent crib fest where I proclaimed that I wish I had acknowledged and come to terms with my eventual reality, four years earlier: that instead of wanting to be a rebel, an angel of excess and decadence, I wish I had accepted that graduate studies in the States, a job with computers, a husband from my own community, a house with a white picket fence, nerdy kids and dogs would be my ultimately reality! I would have prepared myself for this. I should have spent more time learning to code than dream of the day I would become an iconic, female Hank Moody. My upper middle class past would become my upper middle class present and future!

Alas, now it is too late, as things mostly are for people who dwell on their pasts. As the years inch by and I see ten grey hair in place of one, I wonder where all this is headed. I wonder if I should strive to make my new dream come true- to wake up at 7:00AM sharp tomorrow with a smile on my face, apply to three jobs, start my online machine learning course, read about Java and Python, go the gym, eat healthy, watch an episode of Seinfeld and go to sleep. Or should I continue being who I am: a self-hating yet narcissistic, insecure girl in a state of flux, with an aspiration to be an extraordinary writer and a vehicle for change on one hand, and trying to face reality on the other. Will I eventually accept that being normal, and hence unremarkable, is my reality? And even if I do, is it really so bad after all? 

Ponderance

If I die today, who will pay back my loans?

Imagine

(Dated 12/07/2014)

Imagine a world where you don’t need money to survive: where people are kind and they smile at you and say good morning like they really feel it; a world where a man smiles at a woman with genuine good will rather than imagining what lies beneath her clothes. Imagine a world without passports and borders and jobs and responsibilities, where you can just pack your bag and walk out. Imagine everything that John Lennon told you to imagine. Now open your eyes.

You are looking at a screen, reading the thoughts of a person you may or may not know and most likely do not care about. You pause thinking, “this is depressing” and retire to your phone for five minutes, checking out random peoples’ engagement photos on Facebook and blasting pixel jellies out of the way. Maybe, you play a round of Quiz Up and bask in the glory of defeating someone you don’t know in something that NOBODY, including you, cares about. But you like to win, don’t you. You like the rush of being number one and having people look up to you as number one, don’t you. You like feeling important and popular even if it is for a minute don’t you? You get back to this blog post and immediately switch to Facebook on your laptop. Pictures of cute kittens, videos of babies getting massages, NSFW pictures of some model on some beach on some mind-numbingly stupid gossip rag. You go to sleep. You wake up four hours later and first things first you check your phone, to see who has messaged you.

I want to modify John Lennon’s message for our generation. Someday, soon, I want to wake up in the morning with a smile on my face, grab a backup with only two t shirts and a pair of jeans, an anorak and some cash, some books and walk out of my house, without my phone or my laptop. I want to buy a road atlas, and drive a car across America, catch a plane to Tokyo, navigate the crazy beautiful city with simple tourist-guide paper backs in English. After that I want to move, by car, by bus, by train. Hitchhiking, illegal car shares and selling my books for money for the next air ticket. Maybe I’ll consider sleeping with a man for a couple thousand dollars. Maybe I will reconsider. In any case, I will make my way to Bangkok and party all night, for a week. And when I run out of money, I will bus tables, or lead English tours to make some more.

I want to climb mountains. I want to take a dip in every ocean of the world, including the frigid arctic waters. I want to boat across rivers; white water rafting, with my heart in mouth and in those woven little boats, languidly floating across a sprawling tropical river, swatting mosquitoes with my hat. I want to visit villages and relish the fact that there are people who survive without cell phones, and laptops, and TV and expensive alcohol, and high heeled shoes, and mad urge to compete with and destroy any peer who threatens your self-worth. I want to wade knee deep into paddy fields in Laos or Cambodia or South India, and tend to the grains that grow from the soil, to sustain us. Plants, birds, animals and less fortunate human beings: all being born apparently for only one purpose, to serve those who can afford them. I want to sit on the shores of white, sandy beaches, watching the orange sun set slowly out of view, with a paper cup full of wine and no shoes. Nowhere to go, no deadlines, no Tinder, no impressing people. No need of a companion or investments or housing or higher education.

And finally when I am tired and I am all out of money and resources, when my bones grow old, and my mind can’t take it anymore, maybe I will climb one last mountain, watch one last sunset and ride one last ride to the bottom. I will not be confined by decay or disease, by hospitals or ungrateful progeny. I will fade along with the sun and I will go back to the soil I came from.

I wonder and I bet you wonder too, that why does inspiration only strike at four thirty in the morning. Maybe because you are as sick of it all as I am. Maybe because you are as scared as I am about facing reality that we absolutely have no choice to do what I dream of. Not you and not I. And it is fucking scary to think about finding happiness when everything about the world is wrong. But maybe you will go down without a fight, (paraphrasing a good friend), but I won’t. I will fight to keep my dream alive. I will strive to remain unhappy, dissatisfied, vulnerable and masochistic, because it keeps my dream alive: my dream to escape, my dream to not conform and my dream to escape from the daily reminders that I am useless until I prove otherwise. Yes, I will fight to remain unhappy because someday I want to be brave enough to give it all up and run away. Someday, I will run away and none of you will ever find me.